Sharing my favourite family photos with Snapfish

One of the best things about working for myself is that I get to spend more time with my family. Until around three years ago, this wasn’t the case. I spent a lot of time in offices and on trains. Since knocking that on the head and becoming my own boss though, things have been great.

I’ve been able to watch all three kids growing up and have had more opportunities to make memories with them. Like most proud parents I take a lot of photos but, as they’re all digital, the furthest most of them go is social media.

With that in mind, occasions like Father’s Day – which is just over a month away – are the nudge we often need to order some prints or create meaningful gifts that incorporate some of them. Snapfish, for example, has some great ideas.

I asked the kids to help me choose some of their favourite photos of them with me. Interestingly, they chose a fair few that I would have gone for.

These included me teaching one of the boys how to skim stones while the other showed off, a shot of me helping my daughter for one of her first walks around my parents’ garden and a picture of the boys accidentally replicating the Taunting Frenchman pose from Monty Python and the Holy Grail!

They also picked a picture which, though just a quickly-taken snap, sums up life with three children perfectly. We’re on a beach and they’re all running off in different directions! I wasn’t sure how we would incorporate that one, but I logged into my Snapfish account to see what was available.

Uploading images was a doddle. You can easily import them from Instagram, Facebook, Google Images, Flickr and, of course, your device. Most of the pictures my kids selected were on Instagram so we uploaded them direct from there.

We don’t have nearly enough pictures on our walls so we went for a 16 x 12 slim canvas. Three of the images mentioned above were ideal so on they went. It was easy to try different layouts and design variations using the product builder.

Personally, I like to keep things simple with a plain, white background, but there are plenty of others to choose from if you’re more adventurous than me! You can also add text to truly personalise your canvas.

The ‘running all over the place’ image didn’t quite work with the others on the canvas, but we were keen to use it. Then inspiration struck – my wife pointed out that it would be great on a mug. She was spot on. We added it to an 11oz photo mug and it worked a treat!

Father’s Day cards are a must too and, again, Snapfish has loads of bold designs to choose from. We tried the ‘Best Dad Father’s Day’ and ‘Dad Blocks’ designs.

Both look great; I love the informal collage style of the former, while the latter worked nicely with pictures of me with each of the kids when they were born.

They’re great gifts and cards that I would be delighted to receive on Father’s Day and I’m impressed by both the quality of the products and how quickly they arrived.